Watching Thunderheart Again

 Thunderheart as Seen in 2021

 What is Thunderheart?

Val Kilmer in London, England, 2005     

Staring Val Kilmer and Sam Shepard, among other wonderful actors, Thunderheart is a 1992 movie about a murder that occurred on an Sioux Indian reservation and therefore investigated by the FBI. Being part Sioux, Kilmer's character is the junior FBI agent sent to investigate. Sam Shepard plays the senior agent. Graham Greene plays the reservation's head cop and Sheila Tousey plays a reservation school teacher. These American Indians assist Kilmer in finding the guilty party. This movie is currently playing on Amazon Prime for those of you with an account. 

{Image of Kilmer: John Griffiths from London, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0 }

What I Remembered about Watching It the First Time 

I like watching old movies that I have seen before. I remembered that the Kilmer character learned a lot about his American Indian heritage and left the reservation with a greater respect for the American Indian than he had when he first arrived there. I remember that he caught the killer. I remembered that the movie impressed me the first time I saw it. I decided to watch it again.

Watching an Old Movie Again in 2021

After the first hour, my impression of the movie is a bit different. Wakey, wakey. The prejudice against the American Indian, disrespect for the rights of the reservation's residents, and the violence in the treatment of the Native Americans felt like the stories of police mistreatment of Blacks and other minorities repeatedly being reported in the news over the last year and during 2021. I vaguely remembered being disturbed the first time I saw the movie, but mostly being reassured that Kilmer got the bad guy. 

Today, I feel a sad disgust of the way the FBI, with the assistance of some Native American security agents trampled the rights of those residents of the reservation that did not toe the party line--or were simply in harm's way that day. 

And since when was it OK to fire multiple time at an unarmed man running away? Back  then, such action films used guns a lot. Today, I see this action as totally uncalled for, poor policing, and violations of civil rights. 

I am 70 now. When I first saw this movie, I was the mother of teenagers. I enjoyed action films. I do not think my children developed the same values I was taught growing up since we watched these movies together. What I now see as questionable policing, they surely saw as the norm for awhile. 

Today, their thoughts are more nuanced. Their love for this country is sincere. But do they see the faults of some of our State and Federal policies, of some of our elected officials, as clearly as I do now? Is politics a popularity contest to them or matter of maintaining our democracy? Many of the current young Americans are serious about politics and patriotism. Many have good values. Can they save our democracy as a beacon of freedom for all, not just a good living for the chosen few?

I am old now and will not live to see the full ramifications of the challenges faced by our country. Will democracy survive? Will nationalism and bigotry destroy this country? Will we survive the changing ecosystems engendered by global warming? Will the...the questions go on, but the answers are in the hands of the next generations. I hope that they, too, will see Thunderheart in 2021 with a belief that all men are created equal and that all have rights and that our country can be stronger by making inclusion and patriotism mean an adherence to the values of the US and its constitution as applied to all, not just the elite majority.